He made that comment on the same day the Feds released the transcript of the 9/11 call and the summary of the negotiation between authorities and a person who claimed to be “the shooter”. That was June 20th, the same day I covered the story.

Fact is, the Feds report that gunfire broke out from inside the club at around 2:05am and from there an assailant came out of the front of the club, engaged in gunfire with authorities outside, then retreated back into the club where officers followed and continued the gunfight with assailant until said assailant retreated further into the bathroom at 2:15am or so and the 3 hour hostage standoff began.

How accurate that description of the event is, is anyone’s guess… but the fact is, the report from the FBI released that day does not say if anyone died or did not die during that initial shooting spree inside the club before they went outside nor does it say if anyone died or did not die during the gunfight that occurred which drove the assailant into the bathroom.

What it says is, and where Judge gets it wrong is… the report says shots were not fired DURING THE THREE HOUR STANDOFF. And that is true. The report does say that.

People shot by assailant, first responders or the tactical team that made entry at the end of the standoff is a question for forensics. Time of death of victims is a question for responding medical personnel on the scene. There were no reports from either in that first FBI release dated June 20th.

He simply got it wrong and tons of well meaning individuals out there are parroting his statement as if it were gospel fact. All you have to do is read the little three page report yourself, the same one he read, and you will see the mistake he made. Please do that and stop amplifying his error.

At the end of this article are the three pages of the press release the Feds put out on July 20th, 2016… just as I and Judge Napolitano reported on them that day. Read them yourselves, please, and you will see, NOWHERE does it say “no one died” until 5:15am. There was a shooting inside, there was a subsequent gunfight that also took place inside. Shooting and gunfights in crowed bars can often result in deaths. Whether or not they did that night is open for debate. But the FBI report does NOT say “no one died” during them. And that is a fact.

The answer to those questions is hidden in the text of the FBI release from June 20th, 2016 (found in JPEG format at end of article).

And it’s the most startlingly obvious confession through omission that I have ever seen. It’s so obvious, I’m disappointed I didn’t see it sooner.

It has been reported that Omar Mateen sent his wife a text or two during the standoff somewhere around 4am. He said “do you see what is going on?’ It is reported that she said she loved him. Also reported is the fact that she tried to call him on that same phone, but he refused to answer. Apparently at no point did he describe himself to her during the texts as “Omar Mateen”. The texts coming from his phone were identification enough.

And he didn’t answer the phone when she called.

Why wouldn’t he pick up the phone? He was calling everyone else that night from 911 to the cops to a local TV station. So why not his wife when she called?

Because of all four of those potential conversation partners, she’s the only one who would have recognized his voice.

TV reporter: he said “Do you know about the shooting? It’s me… The shooter… blah blah blah (in “Arabic”)… I did it for “ISIS””

911 call: “My name is I pledge allegiance to {whatever}“

Crisis negotiator: “In these calls, the shooter, who identified himself as “an Islamic soldier”“

He never says his name is “Omar Mateen”

Why is that? (psst… because the lawyers told him not to…)

Because we know by now based on the efforts to keep the audio files from public scrutiny it probably wasn’t Omar Mateen and that opens up a huge can of legal worms which SOMEBODY was paying close attention to.

Follow me on this: if someone calls pretending to be “the shooter” and gives some fake info (like bombs in cars outside and suicide vests) during a standoff, what is the max penalty for that?

It can also be written off as some crackpot just trying to be important for the day or some Islamaphobe trying to gin up some hate to make his day go better.

There are a lot of ways out of that problem if the audio track is released and someone tracks the call down to a different location than the Pulse nightclub.

Even if someone is found to have made those calls, what is the actual penalty? Someone saw the news and played a prank. Easily whitewashed with the right prank calling patsy.

Now. What happens if the caller doesn’t identify himself in generic terms? What happens if he says “I’m “OMAR MATEEN”

What happens then?

No one knows who Omar Mateen is. No one is supposed to know who the shooter is in the Pulse nightclub.

So if someone with a different voice makes these calls and they get out to the public and people know it’s not Omar Mateen, but the guy said he was “Omar Mateen” hours before anyone could have known that name…

Then what is that person facing in terms of criminal charges?

Conspiracy to commit murder?

Terrorism?

Mass murder?

He would have to be because he knew the name of the assailant BEFORE the crime ergo, he had to have knowledge of the crime BEFORE the crime. And that makes him an accessory to terrorism and mass murder.

That’s why he never picked up the phone when his wife called.

That’s why he never identified himself to ANYONE as “OMAR MATEEN”

Plausible deniability.

Someone with a really good legal team helped script this event. That’s for sure.

And that’s the smoking gun: his name. It’s as simple as that.

I’m not well. Leg hurts, chest hurts. Gotta take a break. See you tomorrow.

Good catch, as usual. Take care of yourself. I threw a little in the tip jar, wish it could be more. If you might have upcoming medical bills- let’s hope not- perhaps you other readers could contribute a little as well.

Scott, first let me join the chorus: take care of yourself, get better …

I thought there was something fishy about this “item” immediately. Since when are we taking palaver that issues from Faux News as anything but propaganda or disinformation?
Judge? The idea that some honky would retain the title to give him/her credibility on television (?!?) is distasteful, but what the hell …
The funny thing is that no judge or so-called legal expert ( not even Judge Judy) would have the cojones to declare from an MSM source the hidden-in-plain-sight facts you have very intelligently illustrated. More of your usual excellent investigative journalism. Thanks.

PS for anybody who likes deconstructing narratives, “Napolitano” means “from Napoli” (Naples, Italy). Wise guys everywhere know that Napoli is where the world’s best forgers have come from for centuries …

You know what is funny? I never knew he actually sat on the bench. He also teaches at Brooklyn Law School. And he didn’t catch that? Maybe he just misspoke while the cameras were on, but on further inspection, I seriously doubt he doesn’t know how to read a 3-page brief from the Feds without getting it right. Looks to me like he was deliberately putting out misinformation for the purpose of discrediting people who raise questions about this event.

How is he “discrediting people who raise questions” when his conclusion, wrong as you say, only implies that the whole thing WAS a sham and nothing like what was presented to us? It implies a planned entrapment to me.